


Dear Olive

by VinHampton



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Child Loss, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Original Character(s), POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Original Character, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 04:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinHampton/pseuds/VinHampton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vin writes a letter to the child that never was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Olive

Dearest Olive, 

I try not to think about you very often anymore, because I have a responsibility to remain afloat. My family, though small, needs me in good health and sound mind, especially now. When I find thoughts turning to you, I try to distract myself. I find your fa-... I find Sherlock and I speak to him. Sometimes, I speak to him about silly things, just so that I don't have to be quiet. I try not to think about how round my belly ought to be by now, or about how I should have experienced the happiness of feeling you kick and move. I keep you inside your little egg, on your little island, because I am afraid of what dwelling on you might do to me. 

If you had been real, perhaps my thoughts would be more justified, more acceptable. 

But this week, I sat in the empty room which will one day, I hope, be a nursery, and it occurred to me that if you had been real, you would be eight months old, and I would be just a month away from meeting you. I would have a bag packed, ready for you to get here. I would have painted the walls of that room for you - green, maybe. Or purple. We would have a cot and a changing table, and I would have a rocking chair in place, where I would nurse you and cuddle you and read to you someday. 

And for a while, I let myself dwell. I don't cry about it anymore; it is distant enough not to be as painful as it was in the beginning. I don't miss you because there is nothing to miss but smoke. But if you had been real, I would have loved you so much. 

With the way things are going, perhaps it is for the best that you were never mine. You would be born into a time of danger and confusion. Your mother would not be the stable, strong tree you would need and deserve. I wonder if I will ever be a tree like that, instead of a pile of branches, like I am, with no trunk, with no roots. 

In a month's time, perhaps I shall finally cry again. Perhaps I won't. I hope I am forgiven either way. 

-Your Mummy.


End file.
